The Childhood Cancer Foundation created a television commercial to help spread awareness of childhood cancer and the funding for it. The commercial shows a young girl that has tubes going into her nose and is playing with toys.
The way that they show this young girl, she has beads around her neck, which symbolizes everything that she has gone through medically. There are thousands of beads, and those are not the last of them. Children with cancer, spend most of their time in the hospital for checkups and radiation and everything in between. This shows how much these children and families go through.
All the medical expenses add up and really need help funding and finding a cure for cancer.
The way that they show this young girl, she has beads around her neck, which symbolizes everything that she has gone through medically. There are thousands of beads, and those are not the last of them. Children with cancer, spend most of their time in the hospital for checkups and radiation and everything in between. This shows how much these children and families go through.
All the medical expenses add up and really need help funding and finding a cure for cancer.
Using Tactics
In the commercial, Pathos are used. Jay Heinrich's explains pathos as a "rhetorical sympathy shows its concern"(p. 44). In the commercial, you are being showed a sick child and this gets your attention by your emotion.
Seeing a sick child, helps to make people want to help and donate. Does this make you want to donate?
The commercial is showing a child playing and having a tea party, just like any other young girl her age would do. This illustrates how cancer takes away a child's childhood.
Using Pathos really makes the commercial appeal to emotions and gets the information across well.
Secondly, this commercial uses the rhetorical moves of cause. In Jay Heinrich's, TYFA, he says "Embodying the values of a group or a nation"(p. 58).
The commercial is showing a cause of childhood cancer and the need of funding. The producers believe you share their same values and that you should care about these children.
The commercial resembles the known commercials with the sad dogs and the face that tears people up. Here the show a sick child, trying to make the best of her life. This works great to show children since people are always moved to see children and puppies!
Lastly, one of the ways to persuade you the most is the use of showing experience. Heinrich's emphasizes that, "the more vividly you give the audience the sensation of experience the greater emotion you can arouse"(p. 82).
It uses beads to represent everything the child has gone through medically. It shows a real girl that is sick and her story of what she has and is currently going through. These experiences make people care about the children and hopefully make them donate.
As a healthy college student, I do not really think of my world getting turned upside down by a sickness. This is what happens when young children get told they have cancer.
Some of these kids will not make it through all the treatment and will be beaten by this awful illness. I have been able to experience high school, a boyfriend, prom, and so much more, but these kids could face only experiencing a few years of their lives.
Childhood cancer has made an impact on my life by one of my very close friends’ brother being diagnosed with a very ware form of cancer just a year ago.
Austin is a very bright 14 year old who has spent the past year and a half in and out of the hospital. He takes endless amounts of medicine and does not go a day without some type of pain. Since finding out he has cancer, Austin has been isolated most of the time, and whoever comes to visit him usually wears a mask since he is so vulnerable to getting sick.
His family does not have a lot of money and have created a GoFundMe account to help raise money for all the medical expenses.
Click here to help sweet Austin and his family.
Most people do not know what it is like to have a child that is very sick.
One day your kid is playing outside with friends, and then within a week, he or she can in a hospital fighting for their life. You never think about Childhood Cancer until it happens to you or you see it happening to someone close to you.
There are many foundations trying to spread the word through commercials and on the radio so we can help fund these families and to also find a cure for this awful illness.
Did you know?
“Two-thirds of children treated for childhood cancer will suffer long-term effects from treatment including loss of hearing and sight, heart disease, secondary cancers, learning disabilities, infertility and more.”
“More children die of cancer every year than adults died in 9/11.”
You can help by going to...
Cancer Foundations For Kids
American Childhood Cancer Organization
American Cancer Society
And more...